Danny serves as Vice President of Client Development at ThreeWill. His primary responsibilities are to make sure that we are building partnerships with the right clients and getting out the message about how we can help clients.
What is Microsoft 365?
Good morning, and welcome everyone to today’s webinar for the BC public sector. My name is Adrianna Pieraccini. I am a productivity solutions specialist with Microsoft and am based in beautiful British Columbia. In today’s session, I aim to provide you with an understanding of exactly what Microsoft 365 is. The good news is if you’re already an Office user then virtually nothing changes. Only your user experience is enhanced.
What we will cover off, we will leave you with an understanding of what Microsoft 365 is, the services and apps included with it, and we will review some of the benefits that you will experience and gain. The agenda is structured to start with how Microsoft Office has evolved from where it was 10 years ago to where it is today. We’ll cover off Office in the cloud to provide you with an understanding of what that means exactly and then move on to some user scenarios, leaving you with an idea of how it benefits you.
As I go through the content, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to type them into the Q&A box. However, I will be addressing questions at the end of the webinar. Let’s get started.
The evolution of Office. To simplify for an understanding we will cover off the basics of how Microsoft Office has evolved over the last 10 years. The nice thing you’ll notice is that the apps that you’re familiar with are the same ones that you have been using, only they’ve grown up, one might say, a little more mature with some awesome intuitive functionality, enabling not only businesses but users for more efficiencies.
You can see from the right of the slide how functionality is much more inclusive with each other to provide the solutions that are actually mobile solutions, anytime access on any device and highly secure. Many of us know Office as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook email, software that runs on a PC, comes out of the box, and the only way to update it is to upgrade it by buying new software out of a box.
The question one might ask themselves is, “Why can I not have access to the current version of the app at any time on any device?” This is really where the world has moved to and being able to provide the most current version of an app on any device at any time, which is exactly what Microsoft 365 offers a user. This is the great news, so what’s included with Microsoft 365 are all the familiar apps you have come to use and love over the years, so what really changes here isn’t much. You still have access to your familiar apps. You just access them in a more dynamic way to help you communicate and collaborate, get more done easily and faster.
In order to really experience this Microsoft has added some additions to the suite to enable users to do this. The additions to the family are listed here. Although OneNote is not necessarily new, I did want to touch on this great app. OneDrive for business is where we’re going to start. It’s where you store your business documents to save, view, edit, share, even co-author, create content, co-create content with colleagues. Skype for Business enables instant messaging, video and voice calling, also indicates your presence, like whether or not you’re at your desk, whether you’re available, if you’re in a call or if you’re in a meeting, if you’re away from your desk.
Yammer is social for the enterprise. You can follow groups, teams, comment, share ideas, provide feedback. You can even store content. OneNote is new within the last 10 years. If you haven’t experienced it yet, it is a place for note taking. It’s one of my favorite tools. I use it every single day. In OneNote, you can paste images, links, lots of different kinds of content directly into it. I would say think of this as your digital notebook instead of your old paper notebook.
Microsoft 365 delivered services are what Microsoft delivers to organizations to enable the use of the technologies that we just reviewed. The four core services included cover Office for your core app use for Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, OneNote, Skype for communications, SharePoint for document storing, which OneDrive falls under, and Exchange, which provides email functionality.
What the delivered services offers is Office on any device, so this is the cool part. You can access all of your applications across any computer platform, whether it’s an Apple device, being a Mac computer, or an iOS mobile device, a Google Android device, and of course all Windows devices.
The proliferation of devices today has really changed the way that organizations provide software to their end users because even if I took a poll right now many of you would likely have at least up to three devices. What the cloud has enabled Microsoft to do is provide a user with a user based license which essentially follows you everywhere on all of your devices, so a user now has the ability to have Microsoft 365 to download Office on up to 15 devices, so five mobile phones, five tablet style devices, and five PCs or Macs.
Now we’ll take a look at Office in the cloud. In this section, we’re going to help give you an understanding of what the cloud means for Office and yourself. I’m going to start with the basics to help you get a high level understanding of the difference between traditional computer environments and cloud. Typically organizations run all of their apps in a central data center owned and managed by that organization. This would be considered traditional. Cloud is where someone like Microsoft can provide computer power storage like a hard drive to other organizations so that they don’t have to worry about managing it themselves.
A good example to hopefully help you understand both traditional versus cloud is let’s say you’re a photographer. After taking photos you will want to download them to your home personal computer. This would be the traditional way to use an app and store the data. Maybe after you’ve edited those photos on your home computer you want to share them with your friends and family, so you decide to use a website online to do this, which enables you to access them also from a different computer. This would be using the cloud to help you do this.
Hybrid is simply a combination of using both traditional and cloud together, like Office on your device or Office Online. There are some benefits of cloud versus traditional, and what it really means for an end user. It means you can work in a flexible manner that really works for you. You can access your apps and content virtually any time. It’s manageable because it is current, always up to date. There’s no need for an upgrade because you’re simply updating. It’s reliable 365 days of the year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, hence Microsoft 365, and most importantly it’s very secure.
When you’re using a computer that doesn’t have the full desktop version of Office installed, Office Online is your Office in the cloud. View your documents, even PDFs, in your browser, or make quick changes in the online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. When Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents are stored in OneDrive for business or other Microsoft 365 libraries, you can work on them using Office Online, which opens the documents in a web browser.
What we are achieving with Office Online is a modern Office experience. You can use a multitude of devices, devices that you prefer, devices that you’re comfortable with. We provide Office Online or you can access it as an install on your device. You can have the full suite of Office products that enable you to get your job done better and faster and efficiently and the way that you feel comfortable working.
This slide represents the pace of innovation and the pace of change. Everyone expects to have the most up-to-date, current version of an app that they’re using. That is exactly what Microsoft 365 is offering. There is no more upgrades, like I mentioned. Instead, there is now updates which are much more easy and quick to install. You can continue working in your apps and on your systems at all times.
Now we’ll run through some of the scenarios to help paint a picture of how Microsoft 365 can enable you for work. We’re going to cover off get it done from anywhere, store, sync, and share your files, make meetings matter, email and calendar on the go, and work like a network.
Whether it’s a PC, a Mac, a tablet, or a phone, getting it done from anywhere means how Microsoft 365 gives you access to everything that you need to get the job done from anywhere, on almost any device. You can work across a variety of devices from different locations and have a consistent, clean, and fast experience.
Microsoft 365 gives you access to everything you need to get the job done from anywhere, because you can work on your device or you can work online. The picture to the right shows what it looks like when you log into your account from online. All your online apps are shown to the right. Then, when clicked, they open up in a browser. Files and settings are synced from one device to the next, giving you freedom and reliability. You can create, save, edit, and share documents easily, access documents on a mobile device, and take notes on OneNote at any time.
Productivity is how Microsoft categorizes the Office suite of products, because that is exactly the intent, making a user productive. With how Office is now delivered on your device or online, you get the latest tools for productivity and collaboration delivered fast with smooth upgrades. Included, you have a user based model for multiple device downloads on phones, tablets, PCs, or Macs. Settings are synchronized across devices. You have automated updates, no more upgrades, mobile and cross-platform additions, meaning it is compatible on whatever device or operating system you are using.
Store, sync, and share your files with OneDrive for Business in SharePoint. OneDrive for Business in SharePoint enable you to store your documents, share your documents, and co-create and co-author documents with your colleagues. OneDrive for Business lets your team collaborate on documents, share reports with partners, and connect with customers, colleagues, and partners from virtually any device.
Instead of multiple versions on thumb drives and in email communications, you could enable everyone to work on the same file simultaneously and keep track of everyone’s changes in real time. It’s actually incredibly cool to experience this happening because you can literally see all of your colleagues collaborating in the same document. You don’t even need to be at your desk to get the work done together. You can keep reviewing and refining all your files online and offline.
If you’re saving your work files, save them to OneDrive and they’ll follow you everywhere. There are many functions you can take advantage of, like easily saving files to OneDrive. This is one of the best functions of OneDrive in the browser. You can drag files from your computer directly into your OneDrive browser for saving. You can see your files from other devices after you upload files to OneDrive. You can see them from other devices by just signing into your Microsoft 365 site in your browser and then clicking OneDrive.
Save and open your files. You can work with your files you store in OneDrive right from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office desktop apps. There’s no need to go to your Microsoft 365 site in a browser. You can sync your files with your computer, sync OneDrive for Business to your computer, and then get your files in File Explorer instead of your web browser. All your changes sync to OneDrive whenever you’re online and connected to the Internet.
Manage your files in OneDrive. After you sync your OneDrive files with your computer, you can manage your files like other files on your computer. You can move, rename, and delete your files the same way you’re used to, except the changes you make to OneDrive files sync to all your other devices, so if you delete a file it’s deleted everywhere. If you modify a file and you open and you modify it on one device and you open it up on another device, you’re going to see that modification already have taken place.
You can share files with others. When you store your files in OneDrive, you can share with others from any device by going to your Microsoft 365 site, or you can share right from Office without even going to Microsoft 365 in a separate window. Whichever way you share Office files, you can work with others at the same time they work and see changes people make. You can work together at the same time.
When you store and share your files in OneDrive, you can work with others at the same time and avoid reconciling multiple versions of the file. I think we’ve probably all actually been there. Working together from either the online or desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are accessible.
SharePoint is used by organizations to create websites. You can use SharePoint as a secure place to store, organize, share, and access information on almost any device. All you need is a web browser. SharePoint provides you with the functionality of content management, enterprise search capabilities across an organization, collaboration with colleagues, social for the enterprise. You can use it as an application platform, company intranet or extranet to communicate with partners, their retention policies for compliance, and for those project lovers out there, Project Online integrates with it as well.
You need to get the right people working together to get the work done, which is not always simple in today’s business world. Skype for Business makes it easy for people to meet and connect online from wherever they are on multiple devices. You can join or start a meeting with just one click, whether across the hall or across the country. HD video is available. Screen sharing and real-time note taking help make meetings matter, producing actionable results and decisions for you and the team that you work with.
Skype has really changed the way that I work. This is one of my favorite tools in the kit, and you might feel the same after you start using it as well. The features in Skype enable you to check presence and send an instant message, which is less formal than email and faster than a phone call. What’s great though is you have the ability to actually take that instant message and easily turn it into a phone and/or video call.
You have the ability to do desktop sharing where you can even whiteboard and draw with the individuals that are on your Skype bridge, and you can all collaborate together, share ideas, share content in real time. If you’re a presenter, you can show your entire desktop or just selected programs to everyone in the meetings. You can upload and share a PowerPoint presentation. During a meeting you can open your presentation on your computer and share your screen, but if you upload your presentation into Skype you can annotate slides, see the presenter notes, switch presenters, let others view the slides privately, or have someone else take over as a presenter to help you during the meeting.
You can even make the slides available for downloading to all attendees so they can review them after the meeting. Skype for Business recording captures audio, video, instant messaging, application sharing, PowerPoint, and whiteboard activities. Another great feature of Skype is actually letting your audience see you. If you’re on the go, use the Skype for Business app to join a meeting from your phone or tablet, whether that’s an Android phone or an Apple iPad.
Email and calendar on the go. With Microsoft 365, you have easy access to your email and calendar wherever you are. To view your email or calendar on your computer, you can use your Outlook or Outlook web app. To view email or calendar on a phone or tablet, you can use Outlook web app or a compatible app that’s on your device such as an email and calendar app. Outlook is an application that you install on your computer. Outlook web app is the browser-based version of Outlook that you can access over the Internet through Office Online.
Outlook with Microsoft 365 really is a one destination for email, calendars, files, contacts, and tasks. A good example is during your morning train commute, you can coordinate meetings on the go, access synchronized contacts, check your task list, and use intelligent tools to manage your inbox so you can quickly deal with what matters the most. Your work is now connected and accessible.
You can view your email on your computer, tablet, or phone. On your computer you use Outlook. On your phone or tablet you can use an app, and just about any device you can access your email in a browser window using Outlook web app. Outlook provides a calendar so that you can use this to schedule your meetings and appointments. Your calendar will remain consistent and up-to-date across all of your devices when you’re using Microsoft 365.
One thing that I personally take advantage of is personalizing the theme within Outlook to a color and look that I prefer. This is something that you will have the capability to do as well. You can set up an automatic signature for your email. You can set up automatic replies when you’re unavailable, find and easily save a contact through the address book, schedule a meeting through the calendar and see everyone else’s availability, but for those team members that you work really closely with, you have the ability to share your calendar with them as well so that you all have ability to know what time works best for everyone. The search functionality in Outlook is now quite powerful as well, so when you’re looking for that old email, typing anything into the search quickly helps you find it. Assigning and tracking tasks is also an easy way to stay on top of things.
Change is the new constant, and it can be hard to keep up. What if you were connected to everything that’s important that’s work related? Say you’re working on a project. You’d be plugged into every document, person, and activity that was taking place within a particular project. How beneficial would that be? With Yammer, you and the team can exchange ideas, get the latest information, and spot opportunities to adapt quickly and make change happen.
Yammer helps the organization listen, adapt, and grow in new ways by working like a network. More than a content repository, it’s a place where teams can discuss various aspects of a project. You can share ideas, give feedback, take notes together, review the same documents, and more. Yammer makes connecting a distributed workforce easy as well. It helps employees get answers to questions faster and in an open community feed style. Most importantly, it inspires unity and innovation by allowing people to learn, share, and be heard and engaged.
If you’d like more information on the content we reviewed today, I would suggest by starting at the top link there, Office Help and Training. It’s got a lot of great content right on those websites. The Work Wonders Portal is also a fantastic place to start, with lots of Microsoft 365 specific content. This does conclude today’s webinar. Thank you very much for attending. I hope you got value out of today’s session, and we really look forward to seeing you for the next topic. Now we will move on to Q&A, so if you have not already submitted your question, please do so now.
